Ormeggio, Sydney restaurant review

Author: Pat Nourse
Photography: Chris Chen

I hope this doesn't sound too grand for January, but I've been
thinking: while hotel food seems more homogenous than ever, good
restaurants are becoming more and more personal. Allow me to
present exhibit A, the restaurant just opened by the bloke who used
to run the kitchen at the Park Hyatt's Harbourkitchen&bar. It's
called Ormeggio. It's Italian for "mooring" - entirely fitting
given that the restaurant, open to the water on three sides and
with The Spit's d'Albora Marina at its back, is surrounded by
pleasure craft bobbing in the swell. The mercifully subtle peacock
motif etched here and there into the glass, and reiterated in a
vase of shiny tail feathers, meanwhile, is simply a reference to
the English translation of "Pavoni", the chef's surname.

What becomes clear as you eat your way through the menu is that
the food here is all about Alessandro Pavoni. Not his desire to
show off or dazzle you with shows of technique or trills of
presentation, but where he's from and who he is. The "who" is a
trained chef with some serious experience under his belt. The
"where he's from" part varies from dish to dish, but that he's
Italian is always abundantly clear; that he's a northerner, too.
The interesting part is that most of the dishes include elements
not simply of the food of his state of Lombardy but of the region
of Brescia, and even more specifically, the hill town where he grew
up, the focus shifting like so many clicks on Google Earth. Like
his friend Giovanni Pilu, Pavoni is putting his money where his
mouth is, trying to present a truly regional Italian menu rather
than the greatest-hits collections we're normally patronised with.
The approach is, I hope, not so much something we diners view as a
trend as a bloody good idea whose time has well and truly come.

This is all fine and dandy, you're thinking, and good on this
bloke for getting out from under the hotel thumb and doing his own
thing, and for giving it a good Aussie go, but what does this mean
for my lunch exactly? Good things, friends, nothing but good
things. You don't have to give a bugger about Brescia to enjoy the
hell out of the agnolotti, for instance. The instant you pop one in
your mouth, a light goes on in your head: yes, this man can really
cook. The little pasta parcels are filled with a creamy mix of
ricotta and bagòs, a hard cow's milk cheese flavoured with a touch
of saffron, imported by Pavoni from Bagolino, a town just down the
road from his home town of Pezzoro. The strong flavours of the
filling and the tomato and black olive shards it's sauced with play
well together, but it's the pasta that sets the dish apart. The
butter-yellow of the agnolotti hints at part of their secret: many,
many egg yolks have gone into this dough, and it's brilliantly
silken and supple as a result.

The recipe for the pici is very different (wholemeal flour,
white wine, no eggs), but the springy, rounded noodles are just as
impressive in their execution. The wholemeal flavour and texture of
the pasta finds a real harmony with the sauce, a chunky ragù of
rabbit and peas made all the more earthy with a good helping of
porcini mushrooms.

Among the main courses, the Brescian-style pork involtini is
competent and satisfying without being what you'd call exciting.
It's kurobuta pork neck cooked tender in a sheath of pancetta,
paired with a firm wedge of polenta and sautéed spinach. It echoes
the politic, cautious and meticulous food Pavoni did at
harbourkitchen. It's perfectly enjoyable, especially with a carafe
of Umbrian sangiovese or a Valpolicella from the Veneto, but there
are lustier, more rousing things on the menu.

Take the king prawns, for instance. The prawns themselves are
simply large and fresh, split and char-grilled, bang. They ride on
a soft sea of farro, whole wheat grains flavoured with a judicious
sprinkling of saffron. Slivers of almonds - like the saffron, a
mainstay of the food of Brescia - mediate between the protein and
the carbs. There's nothing extraneous here, just a confident
marriage of flavours and textures.

If you're not already outside, take your dessert out on the
deck. The tables inside are blessed with views of Pearl Bay or the
wonderfully varied architecture of the mansions of Seaforth (high
modern and mock-Tudor cheek-by-jowl with mission bordello and late
Troy McClure), but sitting with nothing more than a fledgling
rosemary hedge between you and the water is hard to beat. In the
dining room, tables are clothed, smart waiters are numerous and the
vibe is buzzy, especially on weekends, when there are plenty of
nippers around, playing with dad's iPhone and making the most of
the kids' menu.

There's considerable polish in the presentation of the sweets. A
ribbon of chopped ruby-bright strawberries and small basil leaves
sprinkled with sesame seeds leads to a fat cylinder of sesame
gelato sandwiched between thin discs of chocolate biscuit. The
yoghurt panna cotta, prettier still, is a low, wide circle topped
with a layer of cherry jelly (admittedly stronger of hue than
taste) and garnished with fresh cherries and crunchy pieces of
honeycomb.

The wine list isn't vast, especially when you compare it with
that of near neighbours Pilu at Freshwater, but it's far from a
tedious rep-driven cellar-by-numbers. There's focus here, with a
bias, appropriately enough, towards the wines of northern Italy, a
handful of bottles from Brescia among them. I expect the best way
to put the list through its paces would be to gather a posse of 10,
give the kitchen a day's notice and try out the spiedo alla
Bresciana, a spit roast in the Brescian style. Your $52 a head buys
you pretty much the equivalent of a small northern Italian farm,
rotisserie-roasted for around five hours, the hunks of chicken,
quail, rabbit and pork dripping with sage and butter and served
with plenty of polenta.

There's confidence here both front- and back-of-house, and you
get the clear sense that six months down the track Ormeggio will be
doubly impressive. If this is the north-shore mooring for summer -
and it certainly looks that way - then it's time to start
practising your sheet bends and rolling hitches.